Food stamps rock for Fox News subject

U-T TV Watchdog: Pacific Beach food stamp rocker

This month’s report on Fox News about a local surfer appeared more like reality TV than news, a cartoonish portrayal of a beach bum driving an Escalade and feasting on lobster — all the while collecting food stamps courtesy of the taxpayers.

Too outlandish to be true? Not exactly.

U-T Watchdog spent two weeks vetting the story and visiting with the subject, Jason Greenslate of Pacific Beach, and found that the main points were true, if somewhat embellished.

Greenslate does buy lobster with food stamps. (“If I’m allowed to, then why not?”) But his regular ride isn’t an Escalade — that was provided by his record label for the Fox shoot.

Greenslate does exhibit a nonchalance about his benefits that’s infuriating to some taxpayers. But experts and advocates say he is by no means the typical food-stamp recipient, as some might have thought after watching Fox.

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At 29, Greenslate is an able-bodied man with no dependents who receives $200 a month in CalFresh, as food stamps are known here. He and his band practice for several hours a day, and he qualifies for aid because he has little to no income – unless and until an album by his band Rattlife hits it big.

“I didn’t make the rules,” Greenslate said. “I just stepped in line. That’s all I did.”

Greenslate has a bohemian lifestyle, skull rings and expletive-sprinkled conversation. But his life, as with federal safety net policies themselves, is more nuanced than the version shown on Fox.

The network took some liberties. For instance, the Fox segment showed Greenslate saying he surfs every day. He says he was being egged on by producers and has actually been too busy to surf.

He doesn’t just buy lobster, he also buys rice and fish to roll his own sushi, and is partial to mangoes and avocados, he said.

County officials by law can’t give out information about recipients, but Greenslate says he has been on food stamps for about a year. He is benefiting from two decisions about food stamps made by the government, related to the economy.

The lifted limits have contributed to a 15-fold increase in San Diego County in able-bodied adults without children who receive food stamps. Such enrollees have grown from 1,085 in 2008 to 17,000 today.

Greenslate’s category of recipients has grown with the overall program, from 1 percent of 101,000 recipients countywide in 2008 to 6.6 percent of 258,000 recipients today.

The loosening of federal limits coincided with a county effort to boost participation in food stamps, pushed by advocates for the poor who said San Diego’s record for signing up eligible recipients was miserly.